Onyx Dial 16238 Rolex Datejust
Staring into an onyx Datejust is the horological equivalent of a black hole. Both aesthetically and financially, they will suck you in. Normally, I would always slightly preference a Day-Date, everything else being equal. But in stone dials, Datejusts really sing. You get more of the stone, to start. But I really love that fact…
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Tropical Dial, Square Crown Guard 7928 Tudor Submariner
Minutia in Rolex is really the name of the game, it’s a lifetime’s learning. The dial on this 7928 is spectacular, but it’s not even the most impressive part of this Sub and that’s where the minutia comes in. The very earliest Submariners, big crown and small, lacked crown guards. We will all be familiar…
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2050 IWC ‘Romana’ Perpetual Calendar, Platinum
At its release in ’94, this ref. 2050 was the thinnest perpetual calendar calibre ever at just 3.1mm. It remains to this day a technical marvel, yet it’s all but entirely forgotten. The 2050 was a flag placed in the ground for Schaffhausen in what was a very active battle for the thinnest complicated calibres,…
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‘Linz’ Dial 6564 Rolex Oyster Perpetual
This is a Linz-signed Oyster Perpetual, and it’s about as emblematic of an entirely different world in watches as it’s possible to be. If you’re used to Rolex, this dial might look a bit strange to you. Let me give you a hint: look under the coronet. Imagine any retailer, even Bucherer, taking delivery of…
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E558 ‘Barracuda’ Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Mariner
JLC have a really rather robust history of distinct dive watches, but one is almost always left out—quite unfairly. I suspect because ‘Deep Sea Master Mariner E558’ was a bit of a mouthful (brevity is lost on the Swiss), the watch you’re looking at goes by its nickname today: Barracuda. Things called Baracuda are inherently…
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FP Journe Chronomètre à Résonance RT
The RT series Resonance (RT stands for Resonance Trois) is the most bizarrely distinct in all his five series so far. For no logic I can understand, Journe decided to make the left hand time zone a disc display, while the right remained unaltered. It was the tenth anniversary of the Chronomètre à Résonance, and…
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Slate Dial 2960 Cartier Santos Carrée
Santos is a very broad church and part of its appeal is learning the nuances. Before Cartier became fully married to quartz in the 80s and well before the CPCP-era that resurrected their fine watchmaking approach, one or two mechanical Santos slipped through the cracks, hanging on for dear life. One is the ref. 2960,…
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2526 Patek Philippe Calatrava
This innocuous Calatrava might at first appear to be simply the most timeless design in the world, and it is, but it’s different to almost every other Patek Calatrava that came before or after. It’s the ref. 2526 and its dial is entirely enamel, unlike most Patek Philippe dials where it’s just the signature performed…
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‘Floating Big Red’ Dial 6265 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona
At the center of vintage Rolex collecting lies the Daytona, it’s the sun around which everything else orbits. Except, if we’re keeping the astronomy analogy, it’s really a binary star system, as vintage Cosmograph is split between Paul Newmans and everything else from 6239 until the end of Zenith calibres. I’m finding a lot of…
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Sequoia Wood Dial 1803 Rolex Day-Date
If you really know your Day-Dates, this wood dial will immediately look a different to what you’re used to seeing. It’s made of sequoia, not the birch, mahogany, or walnut you’re perhaps more familiar with, and it’s what came first. In fact, this isn’t just the first wood dial Rolex, it’s one of the earliest…
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